Grouseman, when I teach a flyfishing/tying class, I tell them to mash the barb before you start on the fly. Easier to remove from the fish, easier to remove from you. Also, if the hook breaks, you lose the hook and not an entire fly.

feather, how far can you effectively roll cast? how tight a loop? When many people think of a "roll cast" they think of something that looks much like a Ferris Wheel. You can roll cast that way, but in the Blue Ridge, a better roll cast is a tight looped "punch" of a cast. I can normally roll cast this way up to about 30 feet. ( The bow and arrow folks are suggesting is a good short line technique, but I thought you said the problem was casting further distances with no room for a back-cast. ) With what I'm about to describe, you won't get a "first cast" straight to the fish at the head of a run, but you probably should be fishing the water until you get to that rising fish, before sailing line over the whole run anyway.

Let's set up the scenario like this...

You're fishing a small, overgrown stream. Ahead is deeper water, a run of perhaps 50 feet and you see a trout rising at 25 feet. You're stuck where you are - wading further upstream will send shock-waves through the whole run. Above this run are overhanging tree limbs. The "hole" up the creek is roughly 5 feet tall from water's surface to canopy and 10 feet wide. Above and behind you are trees. No room for a backcast of any type.

Here's the solution and with a little practice anyone can do it. You have to be able to first get out a little line. It's extremely hard to let the line coil at your feet and pull this off. Getting as low as possible, roll cast some line out in short little flips. Once you have 10 feet or so out, you want to make the roll cast forward using a VERY tight loop. The line lands on the water, you fish out the drift (which for wild fish needn't be 6-8 feet) and as the line drifts back to you, you pull the line toward you causing it to "slide" across the surface, breaking the tension on it. When you get it moving toward you, you'll need to make a tight cast forward with a good bit of force. This will almost create a "whip" like action where the line coming at you will still be coming at you but at a greater speed until it meets the tight loop heading forward and gets rolled another 3 or 4 feet ahead. On the next cast, repeat the process. Fish the drift out a few feet, pull the line across the surface, cast a sharp, tight loop forward and watch as the line "rolls out" parallel to the surface and picks up the line coming in, rolling it forward a foot or two off the water. If you can imagine taking a garden hose that has a kink in it and sending a tight loop rolling down the hose to "un-kink" it, that's what it looks like. It's the exact opposite of the large, looping roll cast you see anglers performing on big water.

The technique seems pretty impressive, but once you get the timing down and figure out when you can and can't use it (depending on water conditions and current speed/angle) it's really pretty easy to pull off. You can continue to do this, stripping out and shooting a couple of feet each time you cast, until you finally reach a point where there is too much line out to allow a tight loop to "roll" it downstream. Much as with a garden hose, you can only send a loop down the line so far before it takes too much force and speed to send it further.

I hope this helps someone here the next time you're faced with no room for a backcast and you need to get out more than a few feet of line. I'll try to do a video of the technique soon that should help to explain it further. It's alot easier to show someone how to do it than to tell you from a keyboard.

Thanks for your input on the roll cast. You've described it perfectly! I also use a technique very similar to yours. It can also be done, to a certain extent, but at shorter distances with a "side arm" roll cast. Timing is quicker to keep the loop from bringing the fly too close to the fisherman, thus the shorter distance. There is another I use, that resembles a figure eight that utilizes the side arm technique. This I use when my target is on the right of the stream, but blocked by low hanging limbs, the left side being open or vice versa. The false cast is started in the air on the left in a figure eight configuration and side arm rolled into a vary flat (close to the water) position on the right side. Kind of like a backhand shot with a tennis racket. This will put the leader/fly under limbs hanging just a foot or more over the water. Casualty to losing flies every once in a while, but what the heck, its pretty when you accomplish it, especially if that big trout lying there is impressed.

You're exactly right, it is much easier to demonstrate to someone than to explain in so many words. Having fly fished for over 57 years and loving every minute of it, one tends to accumulate many variations of a basic style. Necessity being the mother of invention.

I've always considered fly casting an art form in its application as well as a toolbox of variation.

Same to you Whitefeather. I didn't mean to "talk down to you" so I hope it didn't come off that way. It's just you never quite know who knows what when it's over the interwebz like this.

I'll have to try that figure-eight cast sometime when I'm out. I'll have to read your description again first though. Maybe even print it out and take it with me to the creek. I've never seen anyone cast exactly as you described. Thanks for sharing that one.

I often do a very special cast that I like to call, "..throw it as far back in the trees as is humanly possible." However, it's very time consuming to complete, since you have to walk 40 feet up the mountain and into the rhodo's to get your fly - so I don't advise trying it unless you're just so bored of catching trout that there's nothing left in the day's fishing. I'm an expert at it though, so I usually start the day off with that one each time I'm out. I should video that. I bet I'd be rich in no time.

Owl
I do a variation of the your cast. Mine is a nice semi-tight loop not behind me but off to one side or other that hangs in the tree right over fishy water. I know it is fishy because when I wade out to unhook I watch them swimming away. I think this could be helpful for the second video in your series

"Same to you Whitefeather. I didn't mean to "talk down to you" so I hope it didn't come off that way. It's just you never quite know who knows what when it's over the interwebz like this."

Owl,

Never thought so one bit. Thanks for your concern. I have found that internet communication lacks those traits of face to face conversation which are needed to fully understand the attitude of the speaker, such as tone of voice, a person's facial demeanor, body language, etc. I call the lack of these traits "internet etiquette." I try to find value in the information that people relay and brush aside any judgment about who they are, what their attitude is, or what station in life they are at. I've often thought that if the people who get carried away with their internet etiquette at times with other people were to do so in a face to face manner, they might get punched in the nose. LOL!

Everyone on this forum has been courteous and friendly in the discussions I have been in and I am very glad for the information they have given. I certainly don't know everything and the older I get, the less I seem to know, and the more I seem to forget.

I'm happy to tell any "secrets" I have and share my experiences with everybody on this forum. Since I don't really know any of you personally, I also don't know you're experiences, so I will bring things up from time to time to just to get a discussion going about trout fishing or fly casting, which I am impassioned by.

Incidentally, I had a very, very rewarding experience this past fall when fishing the Smokies I'd like to share with all. I was coming up out of the stream to the road when a park vehicle drove by and quickly pulled over in the parking lot. The gentleman got out and briskly walked toward me. At first I thought he a ranger and wanted to check my license. He walked up, extended his hand with a smile and said, "Hi, my name's Frank, I'm a fly fisherman and I never pass up an opportunity to talk with another fisherman. How ya doin'?"

He talked for the next hour and forty five minutes about the fish, where to go to catch the browns, the bows and the specks, what to use, his luck with certain techniques, etc. I grabbed a pencil and note pad out of my vest pocket and began scribbling down everything I could remember. I missed out on some time on the water, but making this man's acquaintance and getting the benefit of his knowledge was golden.

I went out the next day to the most enjoyable day of fishing I have ever had in the smokies, and in following his advice, I scored some very nice fish that I would have otherwise passed by. It is in the spirit of Frank's gesture that I greet all on this forum with my hand extended with respect and in friendship for a fellow fly fisherman or fisherwoman.

I wish you the best of luck with the cast I described. One thing you can do before you get to the water is practice the figure eight in an open spot. Start out by false casting on the right (or left) and then switch over to the other side for one cycle.

The figure eight is configured by the movement of the right hand (or left)in a figure eight, elbow above the shoulder, wrist above the forehead rotating 90 degrees to level (then back to upright), with the loops of the "eight" to one side, then the other, parallel to the shoulders, with the cross over in front and above your eyes. Try it with just the fly rod in the beginning, no line out, to get the rhythm. Visualize someone cracking a bull whip in this fashion and it will come to you almost immediately.

Good fishin! Give my regards to the streams and the fish. Perhaps I 'll have a friend of mine help me make a video of it.